Jun 18, 2016 Daily Life, Ramblings and Musings

On June 17th (that is, earlier today, since I count post-midnight posts as still being TODAY!):

And I had a GREAT time!  The audience was VERY small (I guess I should have promoted it a lot more).  However, the people who were there were wonderful poets and artists themselves, and I loved how they listened.
It was lovely to sing for them, play guitar, read my poems and stories, and accompany myself in my readings on my slit drum, my wooden fish-scraper, my clay bongos, and the pear-shaped shaker.
My daughter said she loved it, and my husband had sweet words to say, as well.
I was happy.
It’s been eighteen years since I did a solo gig that lasted an hour.
I am slowly easing back into performance, and I loved tonight’s gentle entry into it!

Tags: #Easing back into the world of performance, #PoetryPerformance, #SongsandGuitar

Jun 14, 2016 Daily Life, Original Poetry, The Daily Post

Skunk-Struggle
©June 14th, 2016
By Vijaya Sundaram

Five little kittens
Skunk kittens, that is.
So small, so tumbly,
Peering through a fence
At me, strange human.

It’s seven p.m.,
Where is their mother?
I wonder, and gaze
So tender, so sweet
Their returning look.

I call out softly.
They squeeze through the gaps
Towards me, sniffing,
All black and white-striped
And soft-snuggly fur.

How is it that they
Know to trust kindness
In a stranger’s voice?
They, who’ve never heard
Human voices call?

How is it that they
Sense benign presence
And yearn towards it?
What souls have these skunks,
So alert and bright?

And I? I’m enthralled.
The backyard shimmers
With mutual longing.
But humans may not
Have commerce with skunks.

The dog barks madly
From within the house
Skunk-kittens tumble
Over each other in alarm
Squeeze back through the fence.

The spell is broken.
Skunks in fur-clump
On the other side,
While the fence divides
Kittens from human.

I go back homewards,
They tumble over
Each other and play
At the farthest end
What else can they do?

It is a struggle
Living and growing
In a hostile world.
Still, they can learn
To make a big stink.

And get their own way.

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Struggle

Tags: #DailyPrompt, #OriginalPoetrybyVijayaSundaram, #Skunk-kittens!, #Struggle, #TheDailyPost

Jun 13, 2016 Culture, Daily Life, The Daily Post

Time to Rebuild
©June 13th, 2016
By Vijaya Sundaram

I’m very, very tired today. 

The car door of our rented car (a honking SUV, which I hate, but which we needed because someone rammed into our car over a week ago, and gave me a fender-bender) got whipped out of my grasp by the wind, as I was opening it, and whacked my poor nose, which promptly started bleeding profusely.  Fortunately, I got ice on it, and lay down, and in forty minutes or so, it stopped.  It’s still a bit sore.

Then, later in the evening, I spent a couple of hours, lopping away at some weed trees, and random small vegetation that had become strong, and was unwanted, and was blocking light from reaching our backyard plants.  It was like plowing through the undergrowth of a small jungle.  My daughter helped by gathering all the huge branches and piles of leaves, and stacked them neatly along the side.  All that work with a big lopper made my arms hurt, but I liked the sense of accomplishment that came with it.

Apart from that, I worked some good dirt and manure into a patch of earth in the side yard, and planted a bunch of morning glories that a friend of ours brought for us, and watered all the plants in the front yard.

We had a good day, as a family and apart – we played Bach chorales on our guitars, each of us taking turns playing the main melody, alto, tenor and bass lines, while playing all the parts together.  It’s always lovely to make music with my family.

So, at this level, I’m happy in my own, tiny part of the universe.

And at another level, I’m heartbroken about this world in which we’re bringing up our daughter.

I’m heartbroken for all the mothers and fathers who lost their sons and daughters in Orlando yesterday: 49 people killed, because of a hateful bigot with access to assault weapons, who decided that those who love people of the same sex are an affront.

I’m heartbroken about a country where it’s easy to get assault weapons, just because of some misbegotten notion that the 2nd Amendment has to be protected at all costs, without regard for the context in which the Second Amendment was put in place.

I’m heartbroken because there’s so much bloodshed, so much misery, so much hate, so much violence, so much darkness in the hearts of so many people.

It’s time to rebuild.

Say No to hatred. 
Say Yes to love.

Say No to violence.
Say yes to healing.

Say No to bigotry.
Say Yes to acceptance.

Say No to war.
Say Yes to peace.

Say No to destruction.
Say Yes to rebuilding.

Oh, and along the way, don’t forget to say hello to your neighbours, call your faraway parents, siblings, friends more often, and give generously of your time and more to those who seek you out.

And save this beautiful blue-green planet of ours –Reduce, Reuse, Recycle, and fight against complacency or despair, when confronted with Climate Change.

Please.

And thank you.

__________________________________________________________

Rebuild

Tags: #DailyPrompt, #DayintheLife, #Rebuild, #TheDailyPost

Jun 10, 2016 Daily Life, Ramblings and Musings

Yearning for the Past
©June 10th, 2016
By Vijaya Sundaram

Usually, I live in the present.  Some days, however, a deep nostalgia, akin to grief, grabs hold of me and doesn’t let go.  This surprises me, because I like to think of myself as being free from all that.  I’m not. 

I yearn for every single minute of my life, every moment, whether good or bad.  I want to relive everything with a double sense of self– my younger self in that moment in time, and my present self, watching over me.

I yearn for the indefinable newness of everything when I was young.  Yes, there’s newness now, as well, but I want to go to that first sense of wonder at experiencing the world through childhood, teenagehood, young adulthood, even my entry into motherhood.  I could list all those memories, sensations, emotions and thoughts, but this is not about listing.

 One cannot step in the same river twice.  I know that.  There is one place where the shadow of a shadow of a shadow of my lived life can be captured – in my mind, and through that, into words on paper, or the screen, where it undergoes another transformation.

Reality is Supreme, and Life is supremely indifferent.

I know every fold in my brain contains those first impressions, and all the minutes, the hours, the days of my life.  I still remember some things so vividly, it’s almost as if I were there – they’re not so much memories that one can share as much as sensations of things.

In the end, all of this will be dust.  Where will all those memories go?  Will my daughter’s cells carry the memories of her parents’ cells?  And do we all carry not just our own, but also our ancestral memories?

Perhaps, those memories will join the ether, and transmit themselves through dreams.

Or, perhaps, those memories will form themselves into new people.  And when those people meet, they will feel kin, and wonder why.

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Tags: #déjà vu, #Memories, #Musings, #Reliving the past

Jun 3, 2016 Daily Life, Ramblings and Musings

The Sky-Clad Man on the Trail
©June 3rd, 2016
By Vijaya Sundaram

Today, I took my dog to the Sheepfold part of the Fells near our house, and she had a grand time romping around, chasing, and being chased by other dogs.

My dog is a bit like my daughter, my husband, and me, in that she loves the company of her kind, as we love the company of our kind, but after a little while, she longs for solitude, or for quiet time with a loved one.

So, after this mad dashing about with other dogs, doing doggy things, and chasing after sticks, she came up to me grinning.  I said, “Walkie?”  She wagged her eagerness, and I slipped the leash back on her.  The dog-romping area is a wild-flower-studded, broad meadow, ringed by woods, and this is the official area where dogs are off-leash.

The day was clement, somewhat cool, with cloudy skies alternating with sunny, blue patches overhead.  The trees looked grateful, and richly green.  The ground was springy under our feet, and old pine-needles made a soft brown carpet underfoot.  Holly and I walked happily, a unit.  Sunlight fell softly upon our shoulders, and the air moved easily in and out of our lungs.  I felt alive and happy, and judging by Holly’s expressive tail and eyebrows, she felt the same.

We took the usual trail, then changed course, and went on one we hadn’t been on before – this was uphill.  At one point, we  found ourselves looking down a steep cliff at a large pond below, although we kept to the forested path much of the time.  We met a bicyclist who had parked near a tree and was looking at a map of the trails, who told me that the pond far below was called “Dark Hollow Pond.”  How magical and mysterious – nice!

You would think that I, a person who likes to think philosophical thoughts, read and write fanciful fiction and poetry, would have some deep insights into life or nature, or existence, while doing this kind of walking with my dog.

And you would be wrong.

I think NO thoughts, or no thoughts that I can remember when I walk.  Mostly, I’m a seeing, moving, sensing creature, completely attuned to my dog’s state of being.  I’m an utterly blank page.  The few thoughts that I do entertain are of an essentially trivial and forgettable nature.

On one of my window-sills in my blue room upstairs sit a few, very tiny, perfectly cast, bronze statues of Buddhist monks – a couple of them are in sitting meditation attitude, and another couple depict them in a frozen state of walking meditation.  I feel like the monks in walking meditation mode.  There is a deep, deep calmness that descends on me in the woods.  I could walk forever, and die walking at such times.

At one point, I went from feeling cool to feeling very hot (after much uphill trekking), so I paused to remove my light jacket, keeping the dog’s leash firmly between my knees, while I worked my arms out of my jacket.

Suddenly, I heard a meek voice say, “Could you please hold your dog?”  I turned, and saw an elderly, somewhat flabby-looking man, shirtless, with a backpack.   I said, “I am holding her, see?” and showed him her leash.  Elderly Man sighed in relief, and walked on.  I am always surprised by the nervousness with which some people view dogs.  I see dogs as being more or less either friendly towards, or uninterested in, humans.  Very rarely have I met a completely unfriendly dog (of course, street dogs are another matter, but even when I lived in India, I knew many amiable and amicable street dogs, on several of whom I bestowed  treats and names.)

Holly and I walked on, upwards towards an even rockier place, which we hadn’t seen before.

And there, a couple of hundred yards ahead of us, right on a craggy outcrop, I got the shock of my life.

With his back to me, a white man stood, completely naked to the world.  Framed by the sky and rocks around him, ringed by trees, he stood, his arms raised, as if in trance.

The picture froze in my mind, as I froze there on the rocks below.

And the following non-thoughts/reactions coursed through me in that instant of seeing:

Was he part of some sort of cult?

Was this a nudist colony?

Was that shirtless old man I’d seen earlier on the trail part of this man’s coterie of naked men?

Were they old, gay men meeting up secretly, far from their families and friends?

Maybe the Naked Man was the leader of some horrific black-magic, Tantric, Satanic cult.

Perhaps, he was sacrificing his own son to his God.

(Or, maybe, he was just enjoying the sunshine on his ageing, naked body.)

In any case, from my brief and horrified glance, it was clear that he was not young, maybe in his sixties.  How I could have deduced all this in one split second, and just from seeing his back, buttocks and legs,  I cannot say, but that much was clear.

Holly and I stood there, aghast for that split second.

I didn’t want to go further.  He was right on the trail and we’d have had to see him in all his naked glory (or not) if we’d continued.  And, heavens forfend, I might have had to (shudder) chat with him about the weather, or exchange pleasantries about how nice it was to be naked in the summer, far from the madding crowd.

That is not the kind of thing yours truly does.  I. Am. A. Prude.

So, as if moved by one united impulse, both Holly and I literally turned tail, and ran back down the trail whence we had come – and we did so almost silently, except for the jingling of her dog tags, and my mangal-sutra.  We didn’t stop to look until we’d gone a safe distance.  I heaved a sigh of relief.  The Naked Man hadn’t heard our approach, or seen us.

Thank goodness.

I don’t know why I ran.  I felt like a frightened, Victorian maiden.  This was odd.  I am NOT a spring chicken, fainting away at the sight of a naked man.  Okay, chicken, yes, but not a spring one!

I think it’s because I wanted to let the man be in his own happy, private zone of freedom, a true digambara (“sky-clad”).  And I did NOT want the vision of some naked stranger to mar my beautiful walk.  AND, I think I had the teeniest bit of primeval fear.  (Sorry, men!)

Well, anyway, Holly and I returned to the beaten path, and ventured up some other, lovely, twisty trails, going higher and higher on the path, until we met two women and three unleashed dogs (a beautiful Australian Blue-Heeler, a charming Mutt, and a handsome Australian shepherd).  The women were very nice, and when they saw me hesitate and stop with Holly at a safe distance from them, they immediately leashed their dogs (if you own a dog, you know that the relationship between leashed and un-leashed dogs is mostly fine, but sometimes fierce and odd.  Something about the leash, I guess.  It was clear that they understood this, because when we exchanged hellos, and I thanked them for leashing their dogs, they were very gracious).

And then, goodness me, I saw the Elderly Man with the backpack whom we’d met on the trail, before I’d almost run into the Naked Man.  He didn’t recoil in horror from Holly this time, and even allowed her to sniff him.  “You’ve had a long hike,” he said to me.  “So have you,” I replied.  Smiling, he went on his way, and we went on ours.

After another long uphill climb up the trail, and back, Holly and I made it back to the Sheepfold, where she said hello to a few canine buddies.  Then, she looked eagerly at me.  “Holly want to go home?” I asked.  She thought-beamed a clear “Yes,” at me.

And so, we went home.  She’s one happy dog today.

And I had a story to tell my family.

And the skies remained cloudy, with clear, blue patches (in case, you wondered).

___________________________________________________________________

Okay, so I’m feeling very clever right now!  Why, do you ask?   Well, it’s because I’d published this same post about an hour earlier and I’d titled it, “The Naked Man on the Trail.”  Within my post, I’d made a mention of the Indian Jain term digambara, which translated, apparently means “sky-clad.”
So, I cleverly changed the slug on this post, and retitled it, as well.
But why? you persist in asking.
Well, The Daily Post’s Daily prompt, which I only just read a few minutes ago was the single word, “Sky.”

Sky

Tags: #essay, #Ramblings, #walkinthewoodswithdog

Jun 2, 2016 Daily Life, Ramblings and Musings

Weeding and Dealing
©June 2nd, 2016
By Vijaya Sundaram

I’d been working for almost three hours in the garden, and came in for lunch about an hour and a half ago.  Got caught up with my family, and then checked WP.

Will soon go back out again to plant some roses, lavender, and some little blue flowers whose name I’ve forgotten.  Plus, some other plants, whose names I’ve forgotten too, but they yield pretty flowers.  (I’d better get better at remembering the names of some of the incidental flowering plants I get, as this is most embarrassing!)

Over the past few weeks, up until yesterday, I weeded and prepared the vegetable beds, added compost and manure, some organic fertilizer and azomite, and planted bush beans, pole beans, beets, carrots cucumbers, peas, tatsoi, lettuce, basil and cilantro.  Today, I’ll be planting celery and another variety of cuke, plus some leafy greens.

It’s so beautiful outside today!  The sun isn’t vengeful in its heat, and the birds are singing in a mellow, muted way.  My flowers look happy.  The lemon balm I planted in a sunny-shaded part of the yard last year or the year before is flourishing happily, looking bright and cheerful.  The beans and peas are coming up, although it’ll be a couple of months before I can harvest them. 

This morning, I planted some Salvia, watered the whole garden, pulled up a ton of weeds, and straightened up the hosta beds at the sidewalk level.  It looks so much neater now, but I’ll never be the perfectly-aligned, nicely ironed-out garden-beds-kind of lady.  We are essentially improvisers and planners, both, and our garden reflects that.

I feel bad pulling up weeds.  I do not use pesticides, because they are basically evil, and destroy the soil.  Even as I pull them up, I apologize to them, and admire them, because weeds are so wonderfully persistent.  They remind me of little imps of mischief, mimicking the plants around them, so as to blend in.

I love all growing things, and if I were religious, which I’m not, I would bless them in religious terms.  As it is, I simply bless them, anyway.

Straightening up my wayward little front yard, which slopes steeply down at a 45 degree angle is quite a task.  The bones of my feet, which aren’t as cushioned as they used to be back when I was in my twenties, feel rubbed raw, even though I wear comfortable sneakers.  Mind you, I’m not complaining.  I view the gradual ageing of my body (and I’m not really old, by any means, but I’ve paid attention to how I’ve felt since I was a young teenager) with a bright interest, noting what needs more attention these days, and what I took for granted.  Even physical pain from labour is interesting, because of the satisfaction I feel that it comes from a true and nurturing place.

All bright, green things are lovely.  Our world is beautiful and so rich in its infinite variety – and I’ve seen so little of it.  I mourn in a quiet way about that, but I know my imagination and the photographs and videos of those who’ve been to distant places will suffice.  Besides, too many of us tromping about in places that are better left undisturbed would harm the environment.

And I shall not think about Climate Change at this happy moment.

Back to gardening.  Today, the weather agrees with me, and I shall make the most of it!

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Tags: #Ageing, #ClimateChangeisReal, #GardeninginSpringtime, #GardeningintheSummer, #Weeds

May 25, 2016 Daily Life, Ramblings and Musings, Uncategorized

Because I was, so to speak, knee-deep (not really, but it sounds better that way) in cow manure and compost and nice, fragrant earth, preparing beds for planting roses on one side, and planting peas and carrot seed in prepared beds on the other side of our hilly front yard.  Last week, I’d planted bush beans and pole-beans in two prepared beds, but things got in the way, and I didn’t get to do more.

Preparing beds for planting vegetables is more back-breaking work than I’d realized.  I mean I’ve done it only a few times before (my husband did it most of the time while I was teaching in school), and I’d forgotten how hard it is to turn the earth, to hoe and dig, and pull up deep-rooted weeds that spread under the top beds and add good, organic compost.

Until this year, I’ve tended to water, weed and harvest things from our garden , but hadn’t done the other hard work that is so pleasurable to do, and also so time-consuming.  And of course, I planted lots of bulbs and small flowering plants and such in the fall, but somehow, that didn’t make me feel as tired as this work did (and that was tiring enough!)

This year, the garden is my responsibility from start to finish, it seems to me.

I love it.

This is my long explanation for why I haven’t done any real writing today.  Well, another added reason was that I spent much of last night dealing with Holly, who had become violently sick from her vaccinations yesterday.  After four or five hours of broken sleep, lots of cleanup and disinfecting, tending to sick dog, reassuring her, doing laundry, and so on, I was a wreck this morning.  Then, the vet called (we’d left a message yesterday night), and said we could come in with Holly and have her looked at at 10:30 a.m.

I drove my poor, dehydrated darling to the vet, where I found she’d lost a whole pound in a single night.  They gave her fluids, gave her anti-nausea meds, and she came home quite cheerfully.  All fine for the rest of the day.  I made her squishy rice with potato and apple, and added chicken broth to it.  She ate like one starved.  Later, she ate rice with yogurt at three separate times.  I think she’s totally back to normal, although she did not touch her dry dog-food.  The amount of worry and stress that my sick dog can generate in me surprises me.  I fretted over her as if she were a baby of mine (well, she is).

Then came all that gardening I mentioned above.  The sun beat down on me today, and I felt somewhat light-headed from all the work, the heat, the lack of sleep, and from my earlier worry about my dog.  A big jar of lemonade, and a watermelon popsicle, and a long, soothing shower later, I was somewhat restored.

After that, we had to get ready to go and fete my husband’s brother’s son (okay, our nephew) who had just graduated from college.  My father-in-law and step mom-in-law had generously offered to host us all to celebrate our nephew’s graduation.  There were ten of us at the venue (my family, my brother-in-law’s family, my nephew’s maternal grandmother, and my father-in-law and his wife).  It was a lovely evening, despite a long wait outside the restaurant, because all of us showed up a little late, and our table was taken.  Still, it afforded us time to chat and be heard, which was harder once we were inside the restaurant.  The food  was good, and we managed to hear each other above the din.  After a nice evening, we headed home to our ecstatic dog.

Once home, we hung out and listened to John Lee Hooker, Howlin’ Wolf and others singing the blues.  Then, we sang 16th century madrigals as we do almost every night, and sent our daughter off to bed.

I still have chores, so many chores.  I am tired.

But happy.

All is well.

I have nothing profound to say, for I’m profoundly tired.

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Tags: #DogWoes, #Family, #Gardening, #Graduation

May 8, 2016 Daily Life, Ramblings and Musings

About my mother:

My mother is beautiful and I adore her.

She is the epitome and grace and goodness, of soul and lyricism.  She imbued me and my sister and brother with music, something which sustains us.

Despite her 8th grade education, she made sure that she supported and encouraged all of us to love learning.  And despite her non-fluent English, it was she who taught me to read and write – not my teachers.

She has lived through terrible privation and loss, and held her children aloft through those times.  Faithful and loyal to her husband, her children, her parents and siblings, defender of all, even those who sought to go her harm, she is a living Saint.  She has seen death up close, and does not flinch.  She does not fear.  She Loves, with a capital L.

She is my Goddess.

If I become half the person my mother is, I shall count myself fortunate.

Happy Mother’s Day, Amma!

Tags: #AboutMyMother, #Mothers'Day

Apr 20, 2016 Daily Life, Ramblings and Musings

Tags: #Dialogue, #YouTubeMagPie

Apr 7, 2016 Daily Life, Ramblings and Musings

Tags: #Activism, #Anuradha Koirala, #Homeschooling, #Mahatma Gandhi, #Ophelia Dahl, #Paul Farmer, #Reconciling selfishness with altruism, #Teaching, #WorkingforOthers'Happiness